The firm’s revenue grew 4.33 percent to NT$54.03 billion (US$1.8 billion) last month from NT$51.79 billion in May, pushing total revenue for last quarter to NT$155.89 billion, hitting the high end of TSMC’s previous forecast range of NT$154 billion to NT$156 billion.

Last quarter’s figures represented a 17.43 percent sequential growth from the NT$132.76 billion it posted in the first quarter and slightly exceeded Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams’ forecast of NT$155.29 billion.

“For TSMC, the company is still seeing some growth to support smartphone launches and remains on target to improve [its product] mix with 28-nanometer [nm] high performance for mobile (HPM) chips over half of its 28nm sales by the second half of this year,” Abrams said in a report.

Last month, TSMC chairman and chief executive officer Morris Chang (張忠謀) said robust demand for chips used in smartphones and other mobile devices was behind the firm’s growth last quarter and he expects the momentum to extend into the current quarter.

In related news, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 3 contract chipmaker, yesterday posted a 0.92 percent drop in revenue for last month, from a two-and-half-year high of NT$10.86 billion registered in May to NT$10.76 billion.

In the April-to-June quarter, UMC’s revenue grew 14.83 percent to NT$31.9 billion from NT$27.78 billion in the first quarter, slightly surpassing the company’s expectation of sequential growth of between 12 percent and 14 percent.

Meanwhile, Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進), which makes driver ICs for LCD flat panels, said its revenue grew 3.7 percent month-on-month to NT$1.84 billion last month from the NT$1.78 billion it posted in May, marking its strongest monthly revenue figure since January 2001.

Last month’s revenue growth was supported by a 3.7 percent monthly growth in wafer shipments, company spokesman Tseng Dong-liang (曾棟樑) said in a statement.

Last quarter, Vanguard’s revenue grew 12 percent to NT$5.36 billion, from NT$4.79 billion in the first three months, hitting its highest level in 13 years, company data showed.